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Title:
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Industrial n-type solar cells: Towards 20% efficiency
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Author(s):
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Published by:
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Publication date:
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ECN
Solar Energy
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1-2-2012
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ECN report number:
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Document type:
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ECN-V--12-006
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Article
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Number of pages:
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Full text:
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6
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Download PDF
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Published in: Photovoltaics International (PV-Tech), , 2012, Vol.15, p.63-69.
Abstract:
This paper presents examples of recent process developments at ECN in silicon solar cells on n-type monocrystalline base material. For all PV manufacturers, the challenge is to increase module efficiencies while maintaining low production cost. An effective way to move to higher and more stable efficiencies, using low-cost industrial-type processing, is n-type solar cell technology. The solar cell considered in this paper is the n-pasha cell – a bifacial solar cell with homogeneous diffusions and screen-printed metallization. The n-pasha cell is currently produced on an industrial scale by Yingli Solar; in 2011 a maximum solar cell conversion efficiency of 19.97% was obtained using this cell concept on 239cm2 n-type Cz at the ECN
laboratory. The focus of the paper will be increasing efficiency by optimization of the cell process, in particular the frontside metallization, and by improvements to the rear-surface passivation. These two steps have contributed to an increase in efficiency of 0.8%, allowing cell efficiencies of 20% to be reached.
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